Young Folks' History of Rome eBook

Severus was, like Trajan and Hadrian, a great builder
and road-maker. The whole empire was connected
by a network of paved roads made by the soldiery,
cutting through hills, bridging valleys, straight,
smooth, and so solid that they remain to this day.
This made communication so rapid that government was
possible to an active man like him. He gave the
Parthians a check; and, when an old man, came to Britain
and marched far north, but he saw it was impossible
to guard Antonius’ wall between the Forth and
Clyde, and only strengthened the rampart of Hadrian
from the Tweed to the Solway. He died at York,
in 211, on his return, and his last watchword was
“Labor!” His wife was named Julia Domna,
and he left two sons, usually called Caracalla and
Geta, who divided the empire; but Geta was soon stabbed
by his brother’s own hand, and then Caracalla
showed himself even worse than Commodus, till he in
his turn was murdered in 217.

[Illustration: SEPTIMUS SEVERUS.]

[Illustration: ANTIOCH.]

His mother, Julia Domna, had a sister called Julia
Saemias, who lived at Antioch, and had two daughters,
Saemias and Mammaea, who each had a son, Elagabalus—­so
called after the idol supposed to represent the sun,
whose priest at Emesa he was—­and Alexander
Severus. The Praetorian Guard, in their difficulty
whom to chose Emperor, chose Elagabalus, a lad of
nineteen, who showed himself a poor, miserable, foolish
wretch, who did the most absurd things. His feasts
were a proverb for excess, and even his lions were
fed on parrots and pheasants. Sometimes he would
get together a festival party of all fat men, or all
thin, all tall, or short, all bald, or gouty; and
at others he would keep the wedding of his namesake
god and Pallas, making matches between the gods and
goddesses all over Italy; and he carried on his service
to his god with the same barbaric dances in a strange
costume as at Emesa, to the great disgust of the Romans.
His grandmother persuaded him to adopt his cousin
Alexander, a youth of much more promise, who took the
name of Severus. The soldiers were charmed with
him; Elagabalus became jealous, and was going to strip
him of his honors; but this angered the Praetorians,
so that they put the elder Emperor to death in 222.

[Illustration: ALEXANDER SEVERUS.]

Alexander Severus was a good and just prince, whose
mother is believed to have been a Christian, and he
had certainly learned enough of the Divine Law to
love virtue, and be firm while he was forbearing.
He loved virtue, but he did not accept the faith,
and would only look upon our Blessed Lord as a sort
of great philosopher, placing His statue with that
of Abraham, Orpheus, and all whom he thought great
teachers of mankind, in a private temple of his own,
as if they were all on a level. He never came
any nearer to the faith, and after thirteen years of
good and firm government he was killed in a mutiny
of the Praetorians in 235.